‘Who do you say that I am?’ Today’s scripture gives challenging hints. Look at Jesus. Jesus is someone who doesn’t fit into our religious categories. He didn’t then and I don’t think he does now. Every attempt to tame him harms him. Or harms us.
‘If you see the Buddha on the road kill him’, says the Buddhist proverb. The God we think we have nailed down is only ever an impostor.
That doesn’t mean that God isn’t real and present and sometimes obvious to us. It means God is too real to be pinned down, too real to be wrapped in rules. He breaks through our boxes. She crosses our church boundaries. God won’t be contained.
But God wants to be known; wants to be with us; wants to surprise us; wants to know us in return.
In the end that’s the only way we’ll ever know ourselves, either. As Paul is saying, our own lives often baffle us. We don’t turn out to be who we thought we were. Our lives don’t turn out the way we imagined. Sometimes the pain of that or the joy of that is too much to bear alone. But we are not alone. When we find ourselves outside the box—we find ourselves with Jesus. When we are edged out of bounds—we meet the God who has already taken the risky journey before us.
God is offering us not understanding but companionship.